News

Partner Mark Barron is quoted in a year-end roundup of oil and gas litigation that E&E News published on Dec. 18, 2019. In the article, “2018 in Court: Climate Impacts Can’t Be Ignored,” Barron comments on judicial rulings requiring federal agencies’ to conduct an enhanced analysis of climate impacts associated with proposed energy projects on public lands.

Countering advocacy group’s efforts to characterize the courts’ ruling as broadly applicable, Barron explained that the degree of climate analysis required for any proposal remains highly project-specific, and that “calculating accurate estimates [of climate impacts] for NEPA purposes is not necessarily plausible” in all cases. Barron also emphasized that a “finding of impacts doesn’t require a halting of the project because NEPA doesn’t mandate any particular outcome. It just requires that decision making be informed.”